KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 ― Voting along the racial lines will resolve every racial conflict in the country, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim suggested today.

The proposal followed his remarks in the Dewan Rakyat moments earlier that principle of equal legislative representation of “one person, one vote” is not suitable for Malaysia unless it is implemented in accordance with the country's multi-racial composition.

“Let the Chinese vote for the Chinese, to represent the 23 per cent Chinese in the country. Let the Indians vote for Indians, there are 7 per cent of Indian.

“This is will resolve all the existing racial problems. Everyone is happy, we will rule in peace and harmony.

“But now we can't because the Chinese who are only 23 per cent of the population but they control 40 seats in the Dewan Rakyat but they couldn't have got 40 seats except if they did it in a bad way, by deriding others,” he said in a press conference at the Parliament lobby.

His remedy for unity, said Shahidan, would be to guarantee that there would not be a racial clash “till the end of time”.

“No one will question who should be the prime minister or the rulers, this way... even until the apocalypse,” he said.

Earlier today, the suggestion by the minister in charge of parliamentary affairs for a concept of “one person, one vote” guided by race had drawn ridicule from Pakatan Rakyat (PR) MPs who said Shahidan did not grasp the consequences of his proposal.

Serdang DAP MP Ong Kian Ming said Shahidan was suggesting for “electoral apartheid”, and demanded the latter resign for advocating such a policy.

“What happened in South Africa was that the blacks voted for the blacks, the coloureds voted for the coloureds and the whites voted for the whites. That is, in effect, what he’s advocating for. That is totally unacceptable in Malaysia,” Ong told reporters.

But Shahidan later retorted by calling Ong “ignorant” of the concept of apartheid.

“It is an apartheid if the minorities in Malaysia control the majority, now that’s apartheid of the first order,” he said.

Later, Shahidan made another suggestion for the number of political parties to be reduced, “because we are wasting money with more and more parties”.

“We only need one party each — one Malay party, one Chinese party, one Indian party and one for the others.

“Let’s not discuss at length. Only the Bumiputeras in this country are entitled to become the prime minister,” he said.